This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Why can't a flight jacket be pink or purple? That was the question a 6-year-old girl asked her mother, Kellie Gerardi, an astronaut, researcher and science communicator.
When Gerardi later appeared in a TV interview wearing a bright pink flight jacket, her daughter pointed to her mom on the TV screen, smiling with delight. This exchange—which appeared in a post on Gerardi's Instagram account—was a personal moment, skillfully presented through the language and visuals of social media. But it also conveys a clear message: Femininity and scientific credibility are not mutually exclusive.
The video is one of 194 posts analyzed in a new study published in the Journal of Science Communication, which examined the Instagram activity of three women astronauts and science influencers: Gerardi, Shawna Pandya and Norah Patten. The research was conducted by Karen Shalev and Shannon Pappas, both graduate students, and Jocelyn Steinke, a professor of communication at the University of Connecticut. It shows that science communication on social media involves more than explaining facts and concepts.
Personal experiences, the communicator's identity and platform-specific tools—from music and hashtags to humor and references to popular culture—all contribute to shaping the message. "Our major finding was that these three science influencers were strategic in the way they framed messages on Instagram, not only to communicate scientific information, and hopefully to foster public interest and engagement in STEMM, but also to build their own personal brands and expand their audiences on Instagram," Steinke explains. The study examined posts published on the influencers' three Instagram accounts between June 24 and Nov. 24, 2024, following the announcement of an upcoming Virgin Galactic research mission featuring Gerardi, Pandya and Patten as an all-women, international crew.
The researchers analyzed all components of the posts, including photographs, videos, written text, audio, hashtags and emojis. Their aim was to investigate three aspects of communication: what topics the influencers selected, how they framed them and which communication tactics they used to attract attention. In other words, the researchers considered what the influencers encouraged audiences to think about, how they guided audiences to interpret those topics and where they directed audiences' attention.
The analysis identified six broad topics, seven message frames and five types of communication tactics. Some posts focused on the women's research and training, explained scientific phenomena or showed experiments conducted in microgravity. At the same time, the women shared the personal journeys that had led them to STEMM—science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine—and spoke about the people who had encouraged them, the challenges they had faced and aspects of their everyday lives.
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